The present invention is concerned with provision of vehicle car seats for single and multiple car seat users. Heretofore, each vehicle car seat was a removable seat generally equipped with a restraining device or harness that can be fastened to the seat of a vehicle for securing a person being a car seat user in the vehicle. Most often it is a seat that is portable for use in the automobile and fastens onto a car's built-in [regular] seat and is used for securing a child in a car's regular seating position. The seat is removable and is designed to hold the child safely while riding in the automobile and attaches to a standard seat with hooks or straps and detaches from the standard seat by unhooking the hooks and/or straps.
Herein, a person using and/or needing a car seat is referred to as a car seat user. Although reference is made to infants, toddlers and/or children, this invention is applicable to any car seat user that uses and/or needs a car seat when traveling in a land, sea or air vehicle. Thus the term ‘car seat’ is used for a removable vehicle seat generally equipped with a restraining device or harness and can be fastened to a regular seat of a vehicle for securing a car seat user in the vehicle. In some cases a car seat system is separately mounted in a vehicle not necessarily using or being mounted upon a vehicle seat.
It is noted that when seating is required for a plurality of car seat users, a separate car seat is needed for each car seat user. Thus each car seat user uses up car width of a separate regular seat built into the vehicle. Thus a family or group including a plurality of children and/or other car seat users is limited in seating capacity by the adult seating capacity of the vehicle being used. This limitation manifests itself as a serious problem for large families and/or groups that find it difficult to meet children car seat needs for all their children or to meet the needs of car seat users of the group. These families must either not meet car seating requirements or leave one or more children out of the vehicle. It would be advantageous to find a way to better utilize the adult seating capacity in a vehicle to provide more seating for persons in car seats than is provided by the vehicle's adult seating capacity. Besides cars, this may be particularly useful in vans, buses or other land, water or air vehicles.
It is further noted that when a car seat application is in need of a plurality of car seats to provide seating for a varying number of car seat users. Heretofore, the vehicle must be provided with separate or attached car seats for the highest number of car seat users anticipated. The combination of seats to provide seating positions for the maximum number of car seat users anticipated. Thus when it is anticipated to have 2, 3, 4, 5, etc car seat users in the vehicle at the same time the vehicle must store 2, 3, 4, 5, etc separate car seats. This generally uses up a significant amount of vehicle storage. It is advantageous to provide a car seat that includes a plurality of separate car seats in a single integral package.